'Two miles?' murmured Jezal, his eyes flickering nervously towards the west again. Arnault's Wall was a fine grey line through the buildings, looking a terribly frail sort of a barrier from up here, and worryingly close. A sudden fear gripped him. Not the guilty concern he felt for the theoretical people down there in the smoke, but a real and very personal fear for his own life. Like the one he had felt among the stones, when the two warriors advanced on him with murder in mind. Perhaps he had made a mistake not leaving the city when he had the chance. Perhaps it was not too late to—

'I will stand or fall alongside the people of the Union!' he shouted, as angry at his own cowardice as he was at the Magus. 'If they are willing to die for me, then I am willing to die for them!' He turned his shoulder towards Bayaz and quickly looked away. 'Open the Agriont, Marshal Varuz. You can fill the palace with wounded too, if you have to.'

Varuz glanced nervously sideways at Bayaz, then gave a stiff bow. 'Hospitals will be set up in the Agriont, then, your Majesty. The barracks will be opened to the people. The palace we had probably better leave sealed, at least until things get worse.'

Jezal could hardly bear to imagine what worse might look like. 'Good, good. See it done.' He had to wipe a tear from under his eye as he turned away from the smouldering city and made for the long stair. The smoke, of course. Nothing but the smoke.

Queen Terez sat alone, framed in the window of their vast bedchamber.

The Countess Shalere was still lurking around the palace somewhere, but it seemed she had learned to keep her scorn well out of Jezal's way. The rest of Terez' ladies she had sent back to Styria before the Gurkish blockaded the harbour. Jezal rather wished that he could have returned the queen herself along with the rest but that, unfortunately, was not an option.

Terez did not so much as glance in his direction as Jezal shut the door. He had to stifle a heavy sigh as he trudged across the room, his boots muddy from the spitting rain, his skin greasy from the soot in the air outside.

'You are treading dirt with you,' said Terez, without looking round, her voice as icy as ever.

'War is a dirty business, my love.' He saw the side of her face twitch with disgust when he said the last two words, and hardly knew whether he wanted to laugh or cry at it. He dropped down heavily in the chair opposite her without touching his boots, knowing all the while that it would infuriate her. There was nothing he could do that would not.

'Must you come to me in this manner?' she snapped.

'Oh, but I could not stay away! You are my wife, after all.'

'Not by choice.'